


Bite Me

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Human Castiel, Vampire Meg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3722194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg was trying to get a warm meal, and she just happened to bite into an anemic college student. Castiel wonders why this vampire keeps insisting on feeding him properly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Warm Meal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 7 of Megstiel Week: Free Choice. The premise for this fic came from [this post](http://notbecauseofvictories.tumblr.com/post/59813337776/leupagus-jaaaaaaaaaackfrost-frostlands) on Tumblr.

Castiel hadn’t had a dream like that since he was a teenager, but he wasn’t about to complain. There was a girl with long dark hair and a sexy smirk on her full lips inching through his bed, straddling his hips. She was wearing a white dress that didn’t really cover her slender figure, her erected nipples peeking through the fabric.

“You’re so beautiful,” Castiel muttered, enchanted by the way she moved, like she was lighter than air. He reckoned that was the best way to describe a dream girl after all.

She was straddling his hips now, and he could feel the wetness of her pussy through his pajama pants. His heart started beating faster, all the blood running to his cock as she leaned over very slowly to kiss him.

“Are you going to be a good boy for me?” she whispered in his ear. Her voice was rough and breathy, and she had very subtly started rocking against his hardness. “Are you going to do everything I tell you?”

Castiel wanted to put his hands on her hips, but he found out he was completely paralyzed. Still, she felt so good against him he couldn’t think of a single reason to want to move.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Very good,” she muttered, as she continued to move slowly against him. It was the sweetest torture in the world, her being in full control while Castiel just melted against her fingertips, her kisses over his jawline, his Adam’s apple, the side of his neck…

Castiel felt a prick, like something sharp had penetrated his skin. In the middle of his hazy, lust-filled thoughts, he wondered if she had bitten him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care…

… until, that was, she backed away with a grimace of disgust on her face.

“Goddammit!” she shouted, rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand. “Dude, what even…? Your blood tastes awful!”

Castiel blinked a couple of times as she stood up and disappeared inside the bathroom. He found out he had recovered control of his limbs (although they felt heavy, like he had ran a marathon or overworked himself at the gym the day before), and he slowly stood up to follow the dream girl.

She was standing in front of the sink, making gargles with his mouthwash.

“You know, this is not how I imagined this dream would go.”

“This is not how I imagined this hunt would go,” she replied after spitting. “Are you sick or something?”

“I have a slight iron-deficiency,” Castiel explained, thinking the dream was getting weirder by the second.

“Trust me, that was no slight iron-deficiency,” she said. “You gotta get that thing checked, I think it might have got worse.”

“How would you know that?” Castiel asked, squinting at her.

“I’m sort of a blood expert,” she replied, with a smile. Castiel took notice of her perfectly aligned white teeth and her large canines.

“You’re a vampire,” Castiel understood. “I’m having a wet dream with a vampire. Okay, then.”

“Oh, you ain’t getting any more wetness from me,” she said, angrily. “Go back to sleep.”

Castiel was about to protest, but before he realized what was happening, his body turned around like it had a will on its own and his feet clumsily dragged him to his bed. The vampire girl was once again towering over him, but this time, she put her long, pale fingers over his forehead.

“Sleep,” she ordered. “Tomorrow you won’t remember any of this.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel woke up the next day feeling heavy and tired, like he hadn’t slept at all, or like he was beginning to incubate a massive flu. For a moment or two, he didn’t know what had interrupted his slumber, until he realized his cellphone was ringing. He rolled over the bed and touched the floor with his feet until he found it.

“Hello?” he groaned.

“Hello, is this Castiel Novak?” a woman on the other end asked.

“Uh… yes?” Castiel said. He made it sound like a question because at that hour of the morning he had no way to be sure. What time was it, anyway? He took a glance at the clock and was so shocked it was two in the afternoon that he missed what the woman on the other end said next. “Excuse me, what?”

“I said, I need you to confirm your four o’clock appointment,” the woman repeated, patiently.

“Appointment for what?”

“Your appointment with Dr. Moseley, the hematologist.”

Castiel rubbed his eyes. He didn’t remember making an appointment with the hematologist, but for some reason it made sense. And besides, his alarm hadn’t gone off and he’d already missed all his morning classes, so he had pretty much nothing else to do with his day.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he mumbled. “Yes, I’ll be there. It’s confirmed.”

The woman must have realized Castiel was in no condition to talk coherently, so she wished him a good afternoon and hung up on him.

Castiel dragged himself to the bathroom and threw his clothes away on the dirty clothes’ basket. He brushed his teeth while he waited for the water to warm up, and glanced himself in the mirror. His dark hair was messy and there where circles underneath his blue eyes, which wasn’t knew, and there was a red stain in his neck, which was new. Castiel turned around and rubbed it, only to find there were two round mosquito bites underneath, so the thing must have been dried blood. It was strange, that he had bled so much thanks to a stupid mosquito. Maybe he did need that consultation with the doctor.

He stopped giving it so much thought and stepped in the shower.

 

* * *

 

He returned to his home later that night with a band aid in his inner elbow and his ears still ringing from the sermon Doctor Moseley had submitted him to.

“Boy, you look so pale you could audition for the next Twilight movie with no make-up,” she had groaned. “You clearly have a deficiency, so now I’m gonna take a blood sample and we’re gonna find out exactly how bad it is.”

And then she’d stabbed him with a needle.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t what’d happened , but Castiel hated sharp things going into his body, and Dr. Moseley had had to try three times to get it right because his veins “were so damn thin.”

In any case, he was not in the mood to deal with anybody when he returned home, but he still had to call his sister Hannah and his friend Dean and tell them that no, the little death he’d suffered the night before hadn’t been of the permanent kind.

“It might be something in my blood,” he’d explained. “And also, I think I’m catching the flu.”

“Alright, Cas,” Dean had said. “You take care of yourself.”

Castiel heated up a bowl of ramen and stayed up until four a. m. reading his notes. That was sort of the same thing, wasn’t it?

When his eyelids finally started closing, he dragged himself to bed without even caring to change into a pair of clean pajamas and sank his face in the pillow. He must have fallen asleep quite fast, because suddenly he was dreaming again: there was a cloud of black smoke sliding into his room. The smoke started spiraling around until it began forming something that resembled a human form.

The girl in the white dress that was suddenly standing in his room stalked towards him, leaned over him and whispered very softly:

“Did you go to your appointment?”

Castiel jumped from his bed, not only because the question sounded so weird coming from a dream construct, but also because the girl’s voice had suddenly brought up a lot of memories from the night before.

“Wait a second, I remember you,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You’re the… the vampire chick.”

“Well, I’ve been called worse,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Did you or did you not?”

“What?” Castiel asked. That was the strangest dream ever. Was that the way his subconscious had to tell him there was something wrong with his blood?

“There _is_ something wrong with your blood, but judging by the state of your apartment, I doubt very much you’d have noticed it if I hadn’t told you,” said the vampire chick. “And I wouldn’t mind if you’d stop thinking about me as ‘the vampire chick.’ That’s racist. I have a name, you know?”

“What?” Castiel repeated. “You can read my mind?”

“Of course I can, I’m a vampire!” she said.

Okay, so that conversation was going nowhere. Castiel laid down on his back and put his hands over his temples.

“This isn’t a fun dream,” he said. “Can’t you go back to being all sexy?”

“You wish,” she snickered. But then she sat on Castiel’s chest, which, if somebody had asked him, he’d definitely say was sending mixed signals. She put a hand under his chin and raised his face until they locked gazes. “What have you been eating? No wonder you’re so anemic! You can’t even bother to make yourself a decent meal.”

“Oh, my God, stop talking like my mom,” Castiel complained, putting a pillow on his face. “Go away!”

The weight (granted, it wasn’t much to begin with) disappeared, and when he raised his head, she was nowhere to be seen. However, he could hear the clattering of porcelain coming from his kitchen.

“Vampire chick?” he inquired.

The groaning that thundered across the room sent a shiver down his spine:

“The name’s Meg!”

 

* * *

 

When he woke the following day, he found his one room apartment in a pristine state it hadn’t known since he’d moved in, and a smoking plate with bacon and coffee over his table. He’d stared at it for a second, wondering what was wrong with that picture until Meg appeared from the kitchen carrying a second plate, this one with scrambled eggs.

“There you are!” she said, putting the plate next to the other. “Hurry up and eat, you’re going to be late for classes.”

“What?” Castiel asked.

“Chop, chop, you don’t have all day!” she added, as she disappeared inside the kitchen again.

Castiel pinched himself really hard, but the food didn’t disappear. Deciding it was time to start going to bed earlier and stop drinking so much coffee, he picked his backpack and went for the door, only to be intercepted by Meg, this time with a bowl of cereals in her hands.

“You can’t leave without breakfast!” she spat. “Open up!”

“Why…” Castiel tried to say, but Meg shoved a spoonful of cereals into his mouth, and Castiel was forced to chew and swallow before he could finish his question. “Why are you here? _How_ are you here? You’re a dream!”

“I am quite real, thank you very much,” Meg replied, forcing more cereals down his throat. “And I am here because I want to be here. I’m three hundred and forty seven, I think I’m old enough to do whatever the hell I damn well please without anybody questioning it.”

“I am questioning it ‘cause you’re in my apartment, feeding me cereals,” Castiel pointed out, irritated. “And because vampires just don’t exist.”

“That’s a controversial opinion coming from someone who has a vampire standing right in front of him,” she replied, with a smile, like what Castiel had said was somewhat amusing. “So what do you reckon I am?”

“A hallucination, obviously,” Castiel replied, skipping the last spoon directed at his face. “One I don’t have the time to deal with right now. I have a very important class I cannot miss.”

“Very well,” Meg said, as she moved. “I’ll have dinner ready when you come back.”

“No, you won’t, ‘cause you won’t be here!”

Meg was there when he came back. She had changed the flimsy white dress into a more modest pair of jeans and a blouse, but she was very much sitting in Castiel’s small table, with a plate with a perfectly cooked steak. The smell made Castiel’s stomach rumble.

“Eat,” she ordered. She had her barefoot on the table, and she was casually passing the pages of a magazine. “It’s gonna get cold.”

“How even…? Did I have lettuce in this house?” Castiel asked, disconcerted, pointing at the salad Meg had prepared to go with the steak.

“Nope, I went to buy some,” Meg replied, with a shrug.

“Aren’t vampires supposed to burst into flames when they go out in the sun?”

“That’s cute,” Meg snorted. “Now you’re going to tell me we need to be invited to get inside someone’s house, huh?”

The simple fact that she was sitting there despite Castiel’s obvious discontent was proof enough that at least that part of the legend wasn’t true. Grumpily, Castiel sat down, grabbed the fork and the knife and took a bite. Meg was glancing at him, expecting a reaction but pretending to be completely caught up in whatever Kim Kardashian was up to those days.

“You know, this is really good,” Castiel told her, sincerely. “For someone who can’t eat, you actually cook pretty well.”

“Why, I’m glad you think so,” Meg said, turning the page. Her indifferent tone was betrayed by the little smirk that appeared on her lips. “I’m gonna be feeding you from now on until we fix that little iron-deficiency.”

“You know, there are other people in the world you can snack on,” Castiel protested.

Meg shrugged, and that’s when Castiel knew he should simply resign to his fate.


	2. What The Hell Is A Mate?

Having a vampire roommate wasn’t as freaky as the words “vampire roommate” would have implied to anyone other than him. Yes, Meg had sauntered into his life and turned the perception he had of the world upside down and he had the feeling nothing would ever be the same again, but other than that, not many things changed. Meg slept during the majority of the day, because despite the sun not making her explode, she seemed to be very sensitive to it. However, she somehow managed to be always awake whenever Castiel left or arrived to the apartment.

“And don’t forget to take your supplements!” she screamed at him as he left.

“I _am_ taking my supplements.”

“Liar,” Meg said. “You keep forgetting. I can _smell_ it on you.”

Castiel didn’t know where that obsession for taking care of him came from. The truth was, Meg hadn’t tried biting him again, even though she kept cooking for him and making sure he got eight hours of sleep every night on his continually messed up bed, because she slept there too and that was the only thing in the apartment that she didn’t care to order (Except when putting on fresh sheets, of course).

“Why do you even care?” Castiel kept asking. “Aren’t vampires supposed to _kill_ humans, not help them with their stupid anemia?”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Meg shrugged.

Castiel lifted his head. The obvious implication to that was that Meg, at some point, _had_ killed humans. And it’s not that he couldn’t picture her doing it, it was just that… he didn’t expect her to be so casual about it.

Meg must have seen the expression on his face or she must have read his thoughts, because she put down the magazine she was reading (she seemed to enjoy celebrity scandals quite a lot), and looked Castiel in the eye.

“That was a long time ago, Cas,” she said. “I was young and my Sire was a sadist. After some time, killing people started to wear me down. Even killing only bad guys became too difficult for me. I kept doing it because I didn’t know there was another way. Then I met Benny.”

“Who’s Benny?”

“The friend who taught me self-control,” she answered. “He was one of the first vampires to learn to survive on blood extracted from corpses.”

Castiel put down the fork, suddenly no longer hungry.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Meg admitted. “And of course, it doesn’t compare to a warm meal.”

Castiel had a flashback to the first night he had seen Meg, the night he thought he was having a wet dream.

“So… is that what you were trying to do when you first slip in here?” he asked. “Have a warm meal?”

“Oh, come on, don’t sound so judgmental about it,” Meg said, sticking her tongue out. “I never take more than people would give if they were donating blood. And also, I make it worth their while.”

Castiel didn’t know why, but the idea that Meg had sex with everyone she sucked blood from bothered him greatly. Meg lifted her head from the magazine.

“Wait a second,” she said. “Are you jealous?”

“No,” Castiel lied, even though he knew it wouldn’t make any difference to her. “And don’t read my thoughts!”

“Sorry. Can’t turn it off any more than you can turn off your hearing.”

“Well, try to,” Castiel groaned.

Meg snickered and leaned closer to him.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I haven’t snacked on any other pretty boys since I found you.”

“And why is that?”

Meg blatantly ignored the question by picking up Cas’ plate and asking him if he wanted dessert.

She did that whenever Castiel interrogated her about her presence there: she deflected, changed the topic or acted like Castiel hadn’t spoken at all.

“I’m starting to think you don’t even know why you’re here,” he told her one night while they watched _Only Lovers Left Alive_ (Meg had a soft spot for Tom Hiddleston and vampire movies, strangely).

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, standing up and turning his back on him.

“Don’t you wanna see how…?” Castiel asked, but he was rendered speechless when Meg took off her shirt and he was treated to a first plane of her naked back.

“I already know how it ends,” Meg said as she unzipped her pants. Castiel looked away, with the blood rushing to his head. “I’m gonna take a shower. You can finish watching if you want.”

“Vampires don’t need to shower!” Castiel shouted on her wake. Meg’s answer was to slam the bathroom’s door behind her. A second later, Castiel heard the water running and hoped Meg wouldn’t use up all of it.

He had just turned his attention back to the screen when someone knocked on the door.

“If it’s girl scout cookies,” Castiel said, pausing the movie with a sad sigh. “I’m not really interested.”

The person standing at the other side of the door wasn’t a Girl Scout. In fact, after taking one look at his pale factions and his darkened eyes, Castiel was certain he wasn’t a person at all.

“I’m looking for Meg,” the bearded man with the bonnet announced.

The bathroom door opened and Meg emerged wrapped up in one of Castiel’s towels and her hair dripping all over the carpet.

“Hey, Benny,” she greeted the other vampire. “Come on in, I’ll be out in just a second.”

She found her clothes and disappeared inside Castiel’s bedroom. Benny grabbed the red cooler at his feet and walked in without waiting for an invitation.

“Uh…” Castiel hesitated, unsure of what were the rules of courtesy in such cases. He’d only deal with Meg up until that point, and she wasn’t exactly what you would call a guest in the house. “Would you, uh… would you like something to drink?”

The words had only just left his mouth when he realized how stupid that sounded. Benny smiled, however, like Castiel had told a very funny joke.

“No, thanks, brotha,” he told him, as he plopped down on one of Castiel’s chair. “It’s rude to bite someone else’s mate.”

The words disconcerted Castiel for a moment.

“Oh,” he said, in the end, blushing violently. “I am not… we’re not… Meg hasn’t… I mean, we haven’t _mated or_ …”

He had no idea why he said that. It sounded horrible. He wished he could take it back, but Benny was already getting up and walking towards him. Castiel took a step backwards, because that’s what you do when you have a supernatural creature that’s bigger and ten times stronger than you.

“No?” the vampire asked. He took a deep breath. “Her scent’s all over this place, though. And all over you.”

“Benny, are you scaring my mate?” Meg asked. Castiel had no idea when she’d got back in, but he was so relieved not to be alone with a strange vampire that he almost crouched behind her. He resisted the impulse because he still wasn’t all that clear on that “mate” stuff.

“What do you mean I’m your mate?” Castiel asked. “Meg, what does it…?”

The two vampires ignored him. Benny put the cooler on the table and opened it for Meg to see its content.

“Freshest in town,” he told Meg, as he showed her the piled up bags of blood. “Make it last, sugar. We don’t know when the next delivery will be.”

“Ah, thank you, Benny, I was starving,” Meg said, picking one up. “Do you mind?”

“Be my guest.”

Meg sank her teeth on the bag and began slurping. The way she closed her eyes in pleasure and the little moan she let out make Castiel shift in his place, uncomfortably.

“Well, uh… I see you two are doing your… vampire thing,” he said. “So I’ll bleed you… I mean, I’ll leave you to it.”

“No need. I’m not staying much longer,” Benny said. “Take care of yourself, Meg. You know not everyone will agree with this decision of yours.”

“Fuck everyone,” Meg replied, squeezing the bag until the lasts drops of blood fell in her tongue.

“Thought you might say something like that,” Benny chuckled, though it didn’t sound too glad about it. “And you kid,” he added, turning to Cas. “Be careful out there. Not all of us are this cute and cuddly.”

Castiel half-expected him to turn into a cloud of smoke, but Benny left in the same mundane way he arrived: by walking out the door.

“Don’t mind him,” Meg said, her lips redder and her brown eyes brighter than before. “He likes to pretend he’s all broody and mysterious, but he’s an old huggable teddy bear once you get to know him.”

“What does ‘mate’ mean?” Castiel asked again.

“I’ll put these on the fridge,” Meg announced, dodging his questions as usual.

“Meg,” Castiel insisted following inside the kitchen. “I… I don’t think that’s very hygienic.”

“And since when do you care about that?” Meg snickered as she placed a bag of blood next to the milk carton. “Besides, I gotta eat, and since you don’t want me sucking from other people…”

She had a point there, but Castiel still hadn’t cleared his doubts.

“Why does my opinion matter?” he asked. “And what was Benny talking about when he said not everyone would like your decision?”

“I’m thinking spaghetti and meatballs for dinner…”

“Meg,” Castiel cut off her rambling by putting a hand on her forearm. She gritted her teeth.

“Ugh, fine,” she said, throwing her arms in the air, defeated. “I was waiting for the right moment to bring it up.”

“Which would be?”

“Once your anemia was a little better and it wouldn’t be so disgusting to bite you,” Meg admitted.

Castiel tilted his head, confused.

“Let’s sit and I’ll tell you everything.”

Meg made sure to serve him a glass of water before she started talking, which was a testament to how well she knew Castiel and how heavy was the topic she was about to bring up.

“A vampire’s mate is someone we form a bond with,” she said. “We are very protective of them, to the point where attacking them is seen as an open declaration of hostility.”

“So they’re like what? Pets?” Castiel asked.

“If they’re into being treated that way,” Meg shrugged. “But a bond between mates is considered an association between equals.”

“Like a marriage.”

“Yes,” Meg nodded. “Only not so easily undone.”

“Oh,” Castiel said. And he downed the entire glass of water in one gulp.

Benny had thought he was vampire-married to Meg. And it wasn’t like the idea repulsed or anything like that, it was just… too much to take in.

“That’s the reason taking a human mate is frown upon,” Meg continued. “Many vampires think they’re inferior, little more than cattle.”

“Well, I’m… glad you don’t see me that way?” Castiel said, unsure.

The smile that appeared on Meg’s face was oddly sad. He’d never seen her sad. She was always sassily making fun at him or irritated because he wouldn’t succumb to her excessive caring. She stretched her hand to put it over his. Her fingers were cold; her whole body temperature was always a few degrees lower than his.

“Of course, I will never make you my mate against your will,” she added. “It’s a serious decision. And there’s a blood exchange involved, which is why I wanted to wait until your blood was drinkable.”

“Wouldn’t that turn me into a… a…?” the word got stuck on Castiel’s throat, so he tried again: “Wouldn’t that make me like you?”

“Not necessarily,” Meg said. “I mean, of course, I can always give you the gift of eternal life later if you want it…”

“Okay, I think we need to slow down,” Castiel made the time-out gesture. “You’re talking about unbreakable bonds and eternal life and you haven’t even asked me if I want to be your boyfriend.”

Meg seemed as surprised as he was by that request.

“Would that make you more comfortable?”

“What?” Castiel fumbled.

“Would you like to be my boyfriend, Castiel?” Meg asked. “And then decide if you want to be my mate?”

Castiel still wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened. But there was such hope in Meg’s eyes, and she had never looked more vulnerable, more human.

“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that.”

He almost didn’t notice the fangs on Meg’s smile.


	3. Ancient History

So there was that. She had just managed to turn his world around once more, and Castiel wasn’t sure he disliked the change.

The first immediate change in their relationship was that Meg became a lot more physical with him. Before she would go out of her way to give Castiel lots of personal space, but now she sat right next to him on the couch instead of at the other end of it when they watched movies or when he was reading his books for college. Her fingers distractedly brushed the side of his hand; her foot delicately touched his under the table. There were also kisses: she would give him a peck on the cheek before he left for classes or on the tip of his ear when he was leaning on the sink doing the dishes. Her breath tingled on his neck when she nuzzled him, and it was always so subtle and so quick, sometimes Castiel wondered if he had imagined it.

But every single one of those ghost touches sent shivers down his spine and left him craving for more. He wanted to turn around to kiss her fiercely and hold her so tight he could feel every curve of her body against his. The memories of the first night she’d been there became clearer as time went by, triggered by his intense desire for Meg, and it _tortured_ him.

But he assumed Meg had her reasons to keep away like that, so he didn’t press the issue. One thing was for sure: if her scent hadn’t been all over him before, like Benny said, it was certainly now.

Another consequence of having a vampire as his girlfriend was that he had to learn to walk a fine line between coming clean about her to his family and friends without giving too much information about her.

“Come on, Cas,” Hannah insisted on the phone. “My friend Rachel wants to meet you, and I think you two would definitely be great together.”

“Listen, Hannah,” Castiel said, glancing at Meg, who was reading her magazine and pretending to ignore the conversation, even though he was pretty certain she wasn’t missing a word. “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m… seeing someone already.”

There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line, possibly because Hannah had been setting Castiel up with her friends since high school so she didn’t believe he had the ability to strike a relationship all on his own.

“Well, woah… that’s great news!” she said. “What’s her name?”

“Meg.”

“Her surname?” Hannah asked.

“Uh…” Castiel hesitated. Meg mouthed it at him. “Masters.”

“There’s a lot of Meg Masters in Facebook, which one is yours?” Hannah asked, not even hiding she was typing madly in her computer. “You don’t even have her on your friends list!”

“She doesn’t have a Facebook,” Castiel said. “She’s kind of old-fashioned in that way.”

“Well, that’s really cute,” Hannah replied. “When do I get to meet her? Are you bringing him to Gabriel’s birthday party?”

“I don’t really think that’s…”

“Brother, you must bring her,” Hannah insisted. “Or I’ll assume you’ve invented her to get me off your case and then I’ll get on your case even harder.”

“Hannah, you don’t have to…” Castiel began, but the phone was ripped from his hands before he could answer.

“Hi, Hannah, this is Meg,” she said, ignoring Castiel’s desperate attempts to recover the phone. “A birthday party, huh? Yes, I’d love to go. I haven’t been in one of those in… well, must be a couple of decades.”

She winked at Castiel, who face-palmed.

“Okay, we’ll see you there,” Meg continued. “I’m excited to meet you too. Bye, bye.” She hung up and raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you ashamed of introducing me to your family because I’m a vampire?”

“Ashamed is not the word I would have chosen,” Castiel sighed. “Freaked out is more like it.”

“Come on,” Meg rolled her eyes. “I know how to behave in public.”

“Enchanting people with your vampire mind tricks doesn’t count as behaving, Meg.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Meg said. “How am I supposed to get people to like me without my mind tricks?”

“I like you well enough without them,” Castiel commented.

The silence that followed became a little too charged for Castiel’s taste. Meg tried to smile and probably dismiss it as a joke, but he knew she knew he’d meant a lot more by it.

“I’m going to bed,” he muttered, awkwardly. “See you in the morning.”

Well, that had not been smooth at all. Castiel didn’t even bother putting on his pajamas before he jumped on the bed and screamed against his pillow. Who would have thought having a vampire girlfriend would be so frustrating?

Several minutes must have passed, because he was just beginning to doze off when he heard his door creak open. A second later, he felt the mattress sinking and Meg’s arms around his chest. Castiel shivered. Apparently, Meg too had decided to ditch her clothes for the night. He could feel her breasts poking against his back and her breath on the back of his head.

“I know what you’ve been thinking,” she told him. “I try not to hear your thoughts, ‘cause I know you don’t like that, but sometimes you think very loudly, Cas.”

“Sorry,” Castiel muttered.

“Don’t be,” Meg replied, her fingers caressing her chest and slowly moving down. “I want this too. It’s just that… sex with vampires can get messy. You know, hearts beating fast, blood pumping through veins…”

“And you think you won’t be able to stop yourself from biting me?”

“I can totally do that,” Meg chuckled. “I only have to remember how you tasted last time I tried.”

“Oh, that’s very funny,” Castiel groaned as he turned around to face her. Meg seemed amused at his grumpiness. “Still, you think we should wait until I’ve decided if I want to be your mate, don’t you?”

“Have you been learning to read thoughts while I wasn’t looking?” Meg asked. “But that’s right. Once you’re my mate, you’ll be safe of me drinking too much blood from you. I’ve heard you develop a sort of instinct that tells you when you’re endangering your mate.”

“You’ve heard?” Castiel asked. “So you’ve never… had a mate before?”

Meg shook her head. “I’ve had relationships with other vampires, but never something as deep.”

“And what made you think of me as a potential one?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We can’t explain the reasons we chose someone as our mate any more than humans can explain why you fall in love.”

Castiel swallowed loudly. Meg had just kind of, sort of, implied that she was in love with him. Meg moved away a little.

“Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“No, not at all,” Castiel said, and in order to conceal his lie, he asked: “So… you always talk about humans like we’re a different species, but you must have been one at some point.”

“Yes, but I’ve been a vampire thirteen times the years I spent as a human,” Meg replied. “You can’t blame me for not exactly remembering what it was like.”

Castiel snuggled closer to her.

“I’d like to hear your story.”

“You sure? You need to sleep, you have classes tomorrow.”

Castiel pursed his lips, and Meg laughed.

“Alright,” she said. “Well, I was born in 1698, right at the beginning of one the most convoluted centuries mankind has known. My family was wealthy and very well-connected in what back then was the Province of New York. My mother died when I was very young, so from my childhood, I was taught how to entertain guests and administer the house. My father had made his fortune during Queen Anne’s war against France, and he expected me to catch a good match while my brother ran the family business. An unfair trade, in my opinion, since Tom never had any head for numbers. Anyway, I kept rejecting the suitors he presented me because I found them boring or just simply unattractive. So by the time I turned twenty-five, he’d given up and assumed I was going to die a spinster. And then Baron Luc Milton arrived in town.”

“Let me guess,” Castiel said. “He was a vampire.”

“Yes,” Meg nodded. “But all I knew back then was he was well-spoken, charismatic, travelled and filthy rich. He also had two sisters, Lilith and Ruby, and Father was dead-set on getting Tom to tie the knot with either of them while I married Luc. We had a lot of fun, the five of us. We spent entire nights dancing and drinking, and I was completely convinced Luc was falling for me.”

She went quiet for a moment, and Castiel understood the memories had made her sad.

“If you don’t want to…”

“No, I do, I do,” Meg said. “I want you to know this.”

She still made another pause before she kept going:

“So one night, Tom and I were on our way to Luc’s mansion for another of his parties when something scared our horses. They began running at top speed, throwing our coachman to the side of the road. Eventually we crashed and when I woke up, I was in so much pain… a dark figure towered above me, and when he knelt, I saw it was Luc. He told me I was on the brink of dead, but if I accepted the gift he was giving me, I could spend eternal life with him. My mind was foggy and it sounded a lot like he was proposing,” Meg laughed, bitterly. “So I said yes… and he turned me, right there, on the side of that road.”

“How did it feel?”

“Weird. Unpleasant,” Meg replied. “Had you ever been sick for weeks on end, only to wake up one morning, completely recovered? Suddenly your view is clearer, your sense of smell is back and you swear you just feel the world in a way you haven’t before. It was like that, only multiplied by ten. And the first thing I perceived, as soon as my mind cleared, was Tom’s breathing.”

“He’d survived the crash?”

“He was all mangled and broken between the wreckage of our carriage, and I begged Luc to save him like he had saved me. Later, I understood he had no intentions whatsoever of saving my brother, but he didn’t want me to resent him. So he turned Tom too and took us to his mansion so we could heal and learn about our new lives.”

“And your father?”

“Incredibly, the coachman survived and returned to the house to tell about the accident and call for help,” Meg said. “My father searched for us until he finally found us in Luc’s mansion. We told him we were going to stay there until we recovered and he was relieved. That was the last time I saw my father with his health intact. Soon after, he came down with a ‘mysterious illness’ and died in a matter of weeks. No one was by his bedside.”

“Oh, no,” Castiel said. “I’m sorry.”

“It's ancient history,” Meg said, but her face had become somber. “Luc said it was for the best that we had lost all contact with our previous life. Tom was fascinated, he wanted to do everything to please him, to be the best vampire he could be, but Luc never showed anything but contempt for him. He never meant to save my brother, only me. He wanted me to become his bride.”

“Wait a second,” Castiel interrupted her. “You said you’d never had a mate before.”

“I wasn’t Luc’s mate, Lilith was,” Meg replied, and she chuckled at Castiel’s confusion. “Oh, I forgot to mention… they weren’t actually his sisters. Lilith was his mate, while Ruby and I were ‘his brides’.”

“How very… Dracula of him,” Castiel commented.

“Well, where do you think dear old Bram got the idea?” Meg said, and laughed again at him. “Anyway, the tension between Luc and me grew every day, because I was very thankful for his saving us, but I couldn’t stand the way he treated Tom. My brother insisted that if he just learnt to be better, he would find a way to get Luc to pay attention to him… it’d only occurred to me later that he had been in love with Luc all along. Since we were no longer tied to the rules of our society, he no longer had reasons to hide his feelings, but Luc kept rejecting him, which only made Tom want to try harder. It was heartbreaking to watch.”

“Why you stayed for so long?” Castiel asked. He imagined that if Hannah had been in the same situation, he would have wanted to take her away as far as he could.

“Where would we go? They were our family now and I loved Luc too,” she continued. “We travelled the world together, saw all sorts of wonders. We also did terrible things. Sometimes we would kidnap people and spend days torturing them and drinking their blood before finally putting them out of their misery. Like I said, Luc was a sadist and he enjoyed violence.”

Castiel shook his head. He didn’t judge Meg for what she’d done in the past, but the idea that someone could be that bloody…

“Ruby and I became close friends, out of our mutual condition of being second best to Lilith,” Meg kept telling him. “One day, she told me the truth: Luc had been behind the carriage accident, hoping to kill off Tom and appear like a savior in front of my eyes. Then he had poisoned my father. I was horrified, and I confronted him about it. Luc was unrepentant. He even smiled at me and said: ‘ _Well, kitten, if you want to leave, leave. Let’s see how much you last out there on your own_ ’. That wasn’t what hurt the most, though. It was that I asked Tom to come with me, and he chose to stay.”

“Where did you go?” Castiel asked.

“I drifted off for a very long time,” Meg said. “Luc thought I would eventually return to him, and I was tempted in a couple of occasions, but I never did. Finally, near the end of the nineteenth century, I met a vampire named Ármin in Hungary and we travelled together to England, where I decided to stay long after he’d moved on.”

“You, lived in Victorian England?” Castiel asked. He almost wanted to laugh at the idea of Meg, who practically exuded sexuality, living in such an uptight world.

“You’d be surprised what a great ambient it was for vampires. There were lots of prostitutes and homeless to keep us fed,” Meg said. “Anyway, that’s where I became friends with Florence, and I advised her to choose Bram over Oscar…”

“Wait, Bram and Oscar?” Castiel repeated, stunned. “As in, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde?”

“Yeah. I told you: Ármin and I gave Bram the idea. He enhanced it all a little for dramatic proposes, I guess, but I forgave him,” Meg said, as if she was commenting the most casual thing in the world.

“Woah,” Castiel said. The English major in him had just woken up. “How were they? I mean, personally.”

“Well, Oscar reminded me of Luc in a way: he was arrogant and had a complete disregard for everything but his own desires. That’s why I told Florence she was better off with Bram. Oscar was mad at me, but I was proven right by the way he treated Constance later,” Meg sighed. “By God, he could make you laugh. He was used to charm his way out of sticky situations… until they caught him in bed with Bosie, that is. It was quite the scandal back then.”

She shifted position to be closer to Cas and continued:

“Bram was of a different material. He was serious and brooding and he would talk for hours and hours about science and human progress and yadda, yadda. He was fascinated like a child by the séances we assisted to, but he would be caught dead before admitting it. He was a safe bet, you know, the kind of man I would have married if I’d had the sense to listen to my father,” she shook her head, like she didn’t want to think about it. “Anyway, I had moved away from them by the time Bram became ill, because they’d started to notice how I wasn’t aging. I kept my correspondence with Florence, though, until around 1912. That’s when I heard the news that a mysterious Lord, his brother and their respective wives had arrived in town.”

“Luc,” Castiel guessed.

“Ruby came to warn me in honor of our old friendship: Luc had heard about my friendship with humans, and wasn’t too happy about the details I’ve given to Bram. He’s a medieval vampire, you see. He came from a time when secrecy was of the essence to stay alive, and he didn’t understand that in the new century, vampires were just a story and nobody was actively looking to kill them,” Meg told him. “Ruby had got me a passage to a ship that was about to sail to New York, and I started thinking how nice it’d be to get back home. So I did my suitcases, I boarded the ship… and the fucking thing sank halfway there.”

“Hold on,” Castiel almost sat up in the bed. “Are we talking about the Titanic?”

“Ruby knew I liked to travel with style,” Meg shrugged.

“Oh, my God,” Castiel said.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Meg said. “Actually, I thought it was pretty pathetic that the stupid ship became famous for doing the only thing it _wasn’t_ supposed to do.”

“How did you survive that?”

“I hid inside a closet and hoped to God it would float,” Meg said. “It did. I drifted for what felt like weeks, until I finally reached the shore. That’s how I returned home: maddened by the thirst and half-baked by the sun. Not the glorious entrance I had pictured. Luckily for me, Benny found me before I unleashed a murderous rampage on the nearest town and someone had the good sense to chop off my head… that’s one way to kill vampires,” she explained. “That and a nice raging fire. Anyway, Benny nursed me back to health and taught me his self-control technique. I hadn’t killed a human ever since.”

“And Luc?”

“I assume he thinks I’m laying frozen in the bottom of the ocean,” Meg said. “It’s been over a century and he hasn’t come looking for me.”

She stopped talking, and it took Castiel a second to understand that was the end of her story.

“That’s amazing, Meg,” he said. “All the things you’ve been through, the people you met…”

“It’s nothing compared to the stories Luc had,” Meg said. “In vampire terms, I’m still very young.”

“Well, I think you’re better than Luc,” Castiel replied. “He never even tried to control his impulses.”

Meg smirked and pulled Castiel’s face closer to hers.

“You… are such a sweetheart,” she said, before planting a kiss on his lips.


	4. Family Gatherings

Meg had always looked good in Castiel’s opinion, but for Gabriel’s birthday party, she went the extra mile: she put on a pair of very tight jeans and a blouse that left one shoulder uncovered. She had also put on make-up to make her cheeks seem a little less pale, and she had drunk one of her blood bags, with her lips acquiring a lovely shade of red as a result.

Castiel was left speechless when he saw her.

“You know what, we don’t have to go,” he told her. “We can just stay here and…”

“Come on,” Meg laughed, grabbing his hand and dragging him downstairs. “Hannah is never going to let you live it down if we miss it.”

It was incredible how right it felt, walking into Gabriel’s apartment hand in hand with her, introducing her to his siblings and friends. Meg smiled and joked and was all around spectacular.

“Well, you were keeping her a secret,” his brother Gabriel said. Meg had a beer in her hand, and was making Hannah and her friend Rachel laugh for the third time in the night. “Where did you find her?”

“She found me, in a way,” Castiel smiled.

“Whatever, keep your meet-cute story for when you have kids who will be bored to death by it,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.

His words dug deep inside Castiel. Meg had explained to him that if he chose to be her mate, they could never have children. She was also convinced he’d become a vampire at some point, but she wasn’t rushing him. She’d said she’d never do what Luc had tried to do to her, cutting off all connections with his human life brusquely. But the idea of seeing all the people who was gathered there that day, people he loved deeply and cared about, growing older and dying while he remained young…

Meg had also mention he could simply stay human. But then he would grow old and die while Meg stayed alive. And that too, was a painful thought. Because he loved Meg as well.

Almost as she had heard what he’d been thinking she turned her face towards him. Their eyes met across the room, and Castiel smiled. In a couple of strides, he had joined her and their hands were automatically linked together. It was like she was the center of the universe, and Castiel was hopelessly orbiting around her all the time.

“You guys look so cute,” Hannah said, happily. “Let me take a photo of you.”

“Oh, I don’t photograph well,” Meg tried to excuse herself, but Hannah had already lifted her phone and snapped a picture.

“Oh… more like you don’t photograph at all,” Hannah said, showing them the picture. Castiel’s face was clear, but Meg’s was covered by a strange white light. “Weird. Must be a problem with the flash. Let me try again…”

“Who wants cake?” Gabriel screamed, and they all gathered around to sing him happy birthday. Luckily, Hannah forgot to try and take another picture afterwards.

“Do you think they liked me?” Meg asked later as they were leaving the party.

“Are you joking?” Castiel laughed. “You were amazing.”

The night was warm over their heads, so they decided to walk home. Cas put an arm around her waist, and Meg sighed with happiness. When they reached the corner, they stopped to wait for the lights to change, and she stood on the tip of her toes to kiss him.

They had kissed quite a lot during the last few weeks since Meg told Cas her story, and it was always careful and sweet, like she was afraid he would back down if she let it go on for too long. But this time was different. This time, Meg grabbed the back of his head and carefully nibbled his lower lip. Castiel moaned into the kiss, and held her tight against his body, his fingers tangling in her hair, enjoying the coolness of her skin.

“So… I know I said we should wait,” Meg said, when they broke apart. “But is it okay with you if we go home and move some furniture around?”

“More than okay,” Castiel said, nodding enthusiastically. “I’m all for it, absolutely.”

Meg smiled, and she was about to kiss him again when she froze. Her smiling face turned into a grimace of anger and she turned around to look at the empty street.

“What is it?” Castiel asked, worried.

“Whoever it is,” Meg screamed to the street. “Leave us alone. We’ve done nothing to you.”

The steps echoed as the other vampire came out of the darkened alley. He was almost as tall as Castiel, with dark hair and stubble covering his face.

“Now, now, Meg,” he said. “Is that any way to greet your family?”

Meg moved almost too fast for Castiel to see. In the blink of an eye, she was standing in front of him, covering him with her body.

“Tom,” she said, in the coldest tone.

“You look awful, little sister,” Tom said, mockingly. “Have you been feeding properly? No, it’s true. You’ve become one of those pacifists, the ones who are a shame for vampires everywhere.”

“Brave words for someone who shouldn’t have become a vampire in the first place,” Meg replied. Her words were like a slap in the face. Tom showed his teeth and groaned, menacingly, but Meg remained calm. “Walk away, Tom. I’m not hurting anybody. I’m just living my life.”

“You’re living your life with _that_ ,” Tom spat, pointing at Castiel with contempt. “How could you trade Luc for this human?”

Somehow, he made the last world sound like a terrible insult.

“Maybe because I’m not a psychopathic serial killer,” Castiel commented.

“Oh, _it_ speaks!” Tom said, mockingly. “I don’t want to hurt you, sister, but you’ve strayed too far. First you go telling our secrets to that sixpenny writer all those years ago, and now you take a human mate? It’s too much. I’m here to take you home.”

“Back with Luc? Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” Tom said.

He whipped his hand, and a large machete slid from under his sleeve into his hand. Meg’s back arched, like a cat about to jump out of the way.

“Cas,” she hissed. “Go.”

“No!” Castiel protested. “I’m not leaving you…”

“I said go!” she screamed, turning around.

Tom saw his chance and took it: he jumped forwards, wielding the machete. Meg leaned at the same time she put a hand on Castiel's chest and pushed him so hard he flew several meters in the air until he hit a car. The front window cracked and broke under his weight, and the alarm started blaring, invading his ears. Castiel gritted his teeth and looked up.

Almost in the middle of the street, Meg and Tom were fighting, their movements too fast to follow. All he knew was that Tom was going for Meg’s neck at any chance he got while she ducked and dodged with the grace of a ballerina. She backhanded Tom on the face, and the vampire fell heavily on the pavement. The machete slid from his hand as the two of them rolled on the floor, their growls and shrieks invading the air.

Castiel didn’t know what overcame him. Someone sane – and later Meg would berate him to no end for not acting sane – would have ran like hell, maybe shouted for help. But all his brain registered was that Meg was in danger, and there was a weapon right there he could use to help her, and he was _not_ abandoning his mate. Because without her, the world wouldn’t make sense anymore.

Ignoring the pain, he got up and ran. Tom was over Meg now, violently scratching her face, her arms and her chest to make her bleed and weaken her, and the rage at seeing him treating her like that lent wings to Castiel’s feet. In a couple of seconds, he had picked up the machete, but Tom caught a glimpse of him through the corner of his eyes. Leaving Meg bleeding out on the floor, he leaped over Castiel and pinned him to the asphalt, grabbing his wrist with super human strength and hitting it against the ground. Castiel heard his bones cracking and a deafening scream he only later realized came from his mouth. The machete slid from his fingers.

“You,” Tom growled, his fangs bared and bloodstained. “It’s gonna feel so good to suck you dry while I make her watch before I kill her…”

Castiel tried to kick him, but it was like a mosquito fighting against a bull. Tom leaned closer, opening his mouth, ready to perforate one of Castiel’s veins…

The machete whizzed in the air. Tom’s head rolled over the floor, and his body fell heavily over Castiel, who pushed it aside, disgusted.

Meg was standing over him, covered in blood and breathing heavily.

“Are you… are you okay?” she panted.

And then she collapsed on the floor.

 

* * *

 

Castiel burst through the door of his apartment carrying Meg in his arms. He had stolen the car he had crashed against, and driven like a manic across the city, at the same time he’d dialed Benny’s number over and over on Meg’s command, but it kept going to voice mail.

He delicately let Meg, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, on the couch and ran towards the fridge. There were only two bags of blood left, and he was certain it would be enough at all, but he grabbed them all and took them to her.

“Meg,” he begged, as he held her head up and put the bag in front of her. “Meg, please, you have to…”

To his relief, Meg reacted by sinking her fangs on the bag and hungrily began swallowing. Meg’s phone rang, and he almost didn’t pick up, but then he saw Benny’s name on the caller ID.

“Sugar, what is it?”

“Benny, thank God,” Castiel said. “You have to help us. Tom tried to attack Meg, and she killed him, but she’s lost a lot of blood, and she looks very weak and I stole a car, and…”

“Woah, woah, slow down, kid,” Benny said. “Where did this happen?”

Castiel gave him the direction where they had left Tom’s decapitated body abandoned. In his rush, he hadn’t even stopped to think that might get them in trouble, but luckily, Benny still had his head over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he told Castiel. “I’ll get rid of everything. You keep Meg drinking, and I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“I don’t know if she…” Castiel began, but Benny had already hung up.

Meg was coughing weakly, and holding the second bag against her mouth with trembling hands. Castiel knew right away that the cold dead man’s blood wouldn’t be enough to help her recover.

“Meg…” he began, kneeling in front of the couch.

“You have to leave,” she said. It was so blunt and sudden that for a moment Castiel didn’t even think he’d heard her correctly, but then she repeated: “Castiel, you have to go. Make a bag, call your friend Dean, tell him you’re going on an impromptu road trip. Or buy a bus ticket, it doesn’t matter where. Just…”

“What do you mean? I’m not leaving you!” Castiel exclaimed, indignant.

“You have to,” Meg insisted. “I don’t know if Tom came here on his own or if Luc sent him, but now that I’ve killed him, he’ll sure come after me. He’ll hurt you. I can’t…”

“If he comes for you tonight, you’re in no condition to fight him,” Castiel pointed out and lifted the bloody machete for her to see he was ready to take on anything that might come close to her. “I am not leaving you.”

“Look, we can’t afford you being stubborn right now,” Meg said. “You’re not my mate yet. As long as you’re out of his reach after he kills me, Luc will lose interest in you.”

The matter-of-fact way he said it sank straight into Castiel’s heart. She was willing to fight her old family and most likely die at their hands for the slight chance that it would keep him safe.

“No.”

“Cas, you can’t…”

Castiel shut her up with a kiss.

“I love you,” he said. He didn’t even think about the words, but as soon as they left his mouth, he realized they were true. “I love you, I don’t want to leave you. I want to be your mate. Read my mind if you don’t believe me.”

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’ve had a brush with death,” Meg groaned, tiredly.

“Okay, then, I’ll repeat it later when you can believe me,” Castiel said. “But you’re not getting me to go anywhere.”

He sat with her on the couch, unbuttoned his shirt and offer her his neck.

“Drink up,” he told her. “You’re going to need your strength if Luc is coming.”

“Cas, I can’t possibly…”

“I’ve been taking all my supplements religiously,” Castiel said. “It shouldn’t taste so disgusting now. Meg, I’m begging you. Just…”

Meg looked into his eyes, and then down at his neck. He registered the thirsty expression on her face before she leaned over and carefully, almost lovingly, pierced his skin with her teeth. There was a moment of sharp pain that passed very quickly, and then Castiel felt his whole body relax. The pain on his back and his broken hand disappeared. He closed his eyes, hearing their hearts beating in unison, Meg’s fingers caressing the back of his head and petting his hair, the little whimpers of delight against his skin. She drank until Castiel started feeling dizzy, and he wouldn’t have stopped her, he would have left her suck him dry.

But Meg stopped anyway. Her face was pinker and her lips no longer seemed faded and chapped.

“Cas? Are you okay?” she asked, worried.

“Yes,” he muttered sleepily. “M’fine…”

Meg held him until the room stopped spinning, pressing her forehead against his. Castiel stared into her shiny eyes, and smiled when she did.

“Cas,” she called softly. “I’ve gotta tell you something.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“You still taste like crap,” she said, worriedly. “It might be worse than we thought.”

Castiel laughed and hid his face in her hair.

And for a moment, the world was exactly as it should be.


End file.
